The Puzzle of Dickenss Last Plot | Page 8

existence.
Presently Crisparkle, under some mysterious impression, apparently telepathic (the book is rich in such psychical phenomena), visits the weir on the river, at night, and next day finds Edwin's watch and chain in the timbers; his scarf-pin in the pool below. The watch and chain must have been placed purposely where they were found, they could not float thither, and, if Neville had slain Edwin, he would not have stolen his property, of course, except as a blind, neutralised by the placing of the watch in a conspicuous spot. However, the increased suspicions drive Neville away to read law in Staple Inn, where Grewgious also dwells, and incessantly watches Neville out of his window.
About six months later, Helena Landless is to join Neville, who is watched at intervals by Jasper, who, again, is watched by Grewgious as the precentor lurks about Staple Inn.
DICK DATCHERY
About the time when Helena leaves Cloisterham for town, a new character appears in Cloisterham, "a white-headed personage with black eyebrows, BUTTONED UP IN A TIGHTISH BLUE SURTOUT, with a buff waistcoat, grey trowsers, and something of a military air." His shock of white hair was unusually thick and ample. This man, "a buffer living idly on his means," named Datchery, is either, as Mr. Proctor believed, Edwin Drood, or, as Mr. Walters thinks, Helena Landless. By making Grewgious drop the remark that Bazzard, his clerk, a moping owl of an amateur tragedian, "is off duty here," at his chambers, Dickens hints that Bazzard is Datchery. But that is a mere false scent, a ruse of the author, scattering paper in the wrong place, in this long paper hunt.
As for Helena, Mr. Walters justly argues that Dickens has marked her for some important part in the ruin of Jasper. "There was a slumbering gleam of fire in her intense dark eyes. Let whomsoever it most concerned look well to it." Again, we have been told that Helena had high courage. She had told Jasper that she feared him "in no circumstances whatever." Again, we have learned that in childhood she had dressed as a boy when she ran away from home; and she had the motives of protecting Rosa and her brother, Neville, from the machinations of Jasper, who needs watching, as he is trying to ruin Neville's already dilapidated character, and, by spying on him, to break down his nerve. Really, of course, Neville is quite safe. There is no corpus delicti, no carcase of the missing Edwin Drood.
For the reasons given, Datchery might be Helena in disguise.
If so, the idea is highly ludicrous, while nothing is proved either by the blackness of Datchery's eyebrows (Helena's were black), or by Datchery's habit of carrying his hat under his arm, not on his head. A person who goes so far as to wear a conspicuous white wig, would not be afraid also to dye his eyebrows black, if he were Edwin; while either Edwin or Helena MUST have "made up" the face, by the use of paint and sham wrinkles. Either Helena or Edwin would have been detected in real life, of course, but we allow for the accepted fictitious convention of successful disguise, and for the necessities of the novelist. A tightly buttoned surtout would show Helena's feminine figure; but let that also pass. As to the hat, Edwin's own hair was long and thick: add a wig, and his hat would be a burden to him.
What is most unlike the stern, fierce, sententious Helena, is Datchery's habit of "chaffing." He fools the ass of a Mayor, Sapsea, by most exaggerated diference: his tone is always that of indolent mockery, which one doubts whether the "intense" and concentrated Helena could assume. He takes rooms in the same house as Jasper, to whom, as to Durdles and Deputy, he introduces himself on the night of his arrival at Cloisterham. He afterwards addresses Deputy, the little gamin, by the name "Winks," which is given to him by the people at the Tramps' lodgings: the name is a secret of Deputy's.
JASPER, ROSA, AND TARTAR
Meanwhile Jasper formally proposes to Rosa, in the school garden: standing apart and leaning against a sundial, as the garden is commanded by many windows. He offers to resign his hopes of bringing Landless to the gallows (perhaps this bad man would provide a corpus delicti of his own making!) if Rosa will accept him: he threatens to "pursue her to the death," if she will not; he frightens her so thoroughly that she rushes to Grewgious in his chambers in London. She now suspects Jasper of Edwin's murder, but keeps her thoughts to herself. She tells Grewgious, who is watching Neville,--"I have a fancy for keeping him under my eye,"-- that Jasper has made love to her, and Grewgious replies in a parody of "God